Unemployment in the 12-country eurozone has fallen to the lowest level since at least the early 1990s, according to official figures on Friday that underscored the region’s improving economic fortunes.

The jobless rate of 7.7 per cent of the workforce recorded for October was the same as in April 2001 – near the peak of the last economic upswing – but otherwise the lowest since comparable, pan-region statistics were started in 1993, said Eurostat, the European Union’s statistical office. After rising in the early part of this decade, Eurozone unemployment peaked at almost 9 per cent in mid-2004.